First Time Trader

[Guest ChequeYour6]

Hi guys,

 

Brand new to the whole trading game and just wanted to ask for (what I'm sure will be some really basic) advice. I (foolishly) assumed that it would be as simple as finding the shares you want to buy, seeing the price and then buying however many shares you want/need/can afford. I joined IG yesterday and I'm trying to purchase some shares (having a go with the demo first before using real cash). Every time I try and place an order or try to buy shares, it always tells me that my offer is rejected or unsuccessful and it always seems to be that the information or numbers I enter are incorrect or do not correlate in some way. Could someone please explain the meaning of "size" and "price level" and Stops and Limits? I know this is basic info, but as I said, I'm pretty green to this game. Thanks very much!

[Caseynotes]

Hi ,  if you only joined a few days ago you may not have seen the IG Academy which has tutorials on the very issues you mention.

 

https://www.ig.com/uk/learn-to-trade/ig-academy/courses

 

[Guest ChequeYour6]

Thanks  I'll give it a go and hopefully get my head around it all. Appreciate your reply

[Guest oilfxpro]

You can get everything for free on the internet, just get your google search words and start searching the net.Be enlightened.

 

https://mrchartist.wordpress.com/

 

http://youtubefreetradingeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/mr-charts-candles-course.html

 

stop loss order in trading stocks

 

The money trees are sold out!

[Guest oilfxpro]

Just be careful !

 

 

[DRIVE]

wouldn't use IG charge £20 commission to open & close a position for 70p profit, theft if you ask me 

[rimmy2000]

 I think the rejection largelty depends on the platform you are using, if you have opened a spread bet demo account then your order is not the number of shares per-se, but the pound£ stake you are placing for each penny movement in the stock.

If its a dealing (equity) account, then you should be able to specify how many shares or how much fund £ to apply to the trade.

Example.

Barclays £2 (or 200p)

 

If you are spread betting in your demo account, you may 'buy' at £10 per point, eg £10 for each penny the stock rises or -£10 for each penny it falls.

So your order would be £10 per point, which is the same as £10 x 200p = £2,000 of exposure equivalent.

 

If its a dealing account you are testing, then you should be able to put in for 1,000 shares (which would equate to £2,000) or £2,000 worth of dealing which (excluding costs) would be roughly the same.

 

Does that help..?

[JamesIG]

---

DRIVE wrote:

wouldn't use IG charge £20 commission to open & close a position for 70p profit, theft if you ask me 

---

Hi  , because this is a public forum I'm not going to go into the specifics of your query, however I just wanted to go over a couple of things. 

 

When you are dealing on CFD's on shares you will be charged a commission of 0.1% for UK shares with a minimum online charge of £10. This is applied to both opening and closing of a deal. You can see all charges here, and a wider selection of changes here. If you are therefore going to close at a 70p profit it's not going to be financially advantageous. If, however, you closed at a £1000 or £100,000 profit you're still only going to be charged 0.1% with a minimum online charge of £10 per deal. The net profit you make on a deal has nothing to do with commission. 

 

In this instance, as you may not have been aware of these charges, I will speak to our Trading Services team and see if we can get the cash correction sorted. Going forwards it's worth referencing the charges before getting into a deal, and in some instances it maybe better to either spread bet (when there are no minimum commissions on shares) or re-evaluate the financial advantage of executing that specific deal. 

[Guest Savvyscot]

Chequeyour6 i hope by now you had a look at the helpful info shared by others and are up to scratch on basics. Some helpful hints for you from when i was a first time trader - may help you avoid costly schoolboy errors:

 

* dont play it oversafe by setting up stop losses too close to opening level of your trade. High risk that it will trigger and you make a guaranteed loss

 

* ensure you have enough in your account to cover big moves against your bet during volatility. As a novice, i had lost all a couple of times by cautiously not depositing enough and having responded to margin calls too late (margin call is just when ig alert you to deposit more funds).

 

* don't be too optimistic by placing large bet sizes when inexperienced. Only trade what is affordable to you

 

* hold your nerve when you see big losses on your account. You dont make a loss until the bet is closed. Psychology is just as crucial as market info.

 

Happy trading.